I’m working on a new startup that has required me to do a fair bit of research into the financial trading industry. During my market research to see what tools are available, I was astounded at how complex they all were. The vast majority of the software solutions need to be downloaded instead of used in the browser, only a small fraction of those downloads work on anything other than specific versions of Windows, and they are all packed with so many features that I feel like I am trying to pilot a Boeing 747.

As my research continued, my mind kept being pulled back to Clayton Christensen’s work on value-proposition disruption. Nearly every tool’s “unique” selling proposition is something along the lines of “We have more features than the other guys.” In Christensen’s seminal work The Innovator’s Dilemma he shows us that the most disruptive technological innovations aren’t accomplished by providing incremental improvements along existing value propositions lines. (i.e. providing a 1GB hard drive when your competitors are providing 750MB drives) But instead by recognizing that the market is sufficiently satisfied with the capability of products along those lines and re-inventing the value proposition altogether. (i.e. making a hard drive that will fit into a much smaller device)

In the last few years we’ve seen this trend in software from feature-rich to minimalistic simplicity really take hold. [1. Apple helped with the concept of the single-use “app.”] (Evgeny Shadchnev pointed out to me that this is likely a side-effect consequence of that the fact that single-use applications are likely more successful than feature-rich/confusing applications, thus we see more of them.) I remember the first time that I saw Hipmunk and it was obvious that this is the direction that most software should be moving.

So this led me to the question of why this movement to simplicity is almost non-existent in fintech (financial technology)?

I started attending fintech meetups to try and get a better understanding as to why this mindset shift is lagged so acutely in this particular industry –  and it became even more confusing. I expected to show up and see a bunch of 50 year old men discussing their portfolios and complaining about how social media is poisoning all of their new recruits, but instead I found a lively group of young professionals who were excited and motivated about the prospects of what fintech could contribute to their future financial careers.

I could see the entrepreneurial spark in the eyes of so many of the them that it only compounded my confusion of the apparent lack of disruptive innovation. These people are intelligent, charismatic, driven and have the means to affect change.

But slowly the answer began to rear its ugly head.

I overheard a very intelligent and energetic gentleman say that he’s been working with a software developer for the last two years writing over 750 thousand lines of code for a solution to a problem that he sees his firm struggling with. After I ask him if he’s pursued a PO (purchase order) or done customer development, he responds with, “Who is going to pay for something that doesn’t exist yet – my product needs to be experienced in order for the value to be understood.”

The next young lady talks about how her consumer-facing solution is going to change the world and after six months of pitching VCs, she feels that she is close to securing funding. [2. There is a great tweet that recently went viral saying, “A founder celebrating raising funding is like a chef celebrating buying the ingredients.”]

More and more of these interactions took place to the point that I now believe: it’s not that there aren’t good fintech ideas out there – it’s that the individuals with the ideas don’t usually have the crossover startup expertise in order to find a profitable business model. Being in finance seems to demand so much of their time that it’s understandably difficult to be an expert in both.

It was this realization that gave me the epiphany to understand how all of these pieces fit together. Being an expert in finance is hard. Being an expert in software development is hard. Being an expert in startup entrepreneurship is hard. (Particularly customer development and the realization that your efforts should be in the search for a profitable business model, not immediately building a product.)

Each of these verticals require such a deep experiential and educational investment, it’s very rare to find a significant-enough overlap to provide the momentum needed to develop a disruptive startup. The personality traits and culture-fits are often diametrically opposed. By this I mean that the exact personality and character traits that would make one most likely to be successful in finance are likely the traits that would make them least likely to build a successfull startup and creatively work with software developers to release disruptive products. [3. This is closely related to the marginal investment lessons taught in most MBA courses.]

The same thing goes for great hackers. The hacker culture is often opposed to the culture of corporate “suits” and big finance – thus further widening the chasm between the two groups. There are very few networking events that would attract the same groups. Some of the greatest “hacks” we’ve seen are because hackers have wanted to build something great for themselves. This explains why there are 1000s of online project management software suites that are beautifully developed and nearly nothing for financial traders. [4. It’s likely that this framework of “being too difficult to find many people who master both” is likely present in other fields as well. (i.e. Medicine, Law, etc.)]

Fintech is ripe for disruption. An elegant pairing of intelligent finance professionals with lean startup and customer development experts that understand the benefit of giving good hackers problems to solve instead of wireframes could have massive results (and profits). As the industry realizes that their premise of “more features is better” isn’t accurate and that bringing powerful financial tools that are easy to use to consumers is far from impossible, we’re going to see increased investment in channeling the masses to the financial markets. I anticipate seeing more founders framing solutions in the fintech space as this industry rebounds, but that leaves a gap of opportunity for those who start exploring the space now.

Thanks to @shadchnev (Evgeny Shadchnev) for reviewing and providing incredible feedback on this essay. Follow me on Twitter @startuprob